The Amazing World of Gumball (sometimes referred to simply as Gumball) is a British-American animated television series that is created by Ben Bocquelet for Cartoon Network. It is produced primarily by Cartoon Network Development Studio Europe. On May 3, 2011, a sneak preview of the episode "The DVD" was shown after the premiere of The Looney Tunes Show. It officially premiered on May 9, 2011, with the episodes "The DVD" and "The Responsible." According to the Cartoon Network website, The Amazing World of Gumball is one of the most popular shows on the channel, along with Adventure Time, Regular Show, and Steven Universe.

The series revolves around the life of Gumball Watterson, a 12 year old cat who attends middle school in Elmore. Accompanied by his pet, adoptive brother, and best friend Darwin Watterson, he frequently finds himself involved in various shenanigans around the city, during which he interacts with various family members- Anais, Richard and Nicole - and other various citizens.

Intro

Animation of The Amazing World of Gumball

The first ten episodes or so were animated slightly differently from the later episodes. All the episodes have mixed media, with CGI dinosaurs, mixed in with claymation balls of clay, and 2D flowers and ghosts. However, the animations of the 2D characters became slightly more jerky and generally cartoony than the first episode's more lifelike motions. Gumball's body also changes in form slightly, with his fangs rounded and his eyes slightly smaller than before, All of which changed by the first season finale, as the animations in the last 2 episodes seemed less jerky and more lifelike, along with Gumball's fangs being sharp again and his eyes being bigger. Also, unlike most cartoons, it uses backgrounds from the real world, due to the reason that the creator worked on commercials for the UK before creating the show, learning how to give a realistic feeling to the background.

References in Popular Culture

Television Shows

Gumball and Darwin appeared in a Wile E. Coyote and The Road Runner styled cartoon on the Titans' television. Darwin's appearance has purple skin with red shoes and Gumball's appearance has green fur and wearing a red sweater.

Gumball appears as an audience member watching the Grampies awards. Gumball's appearance is animated in hand-drawn animation with the oval eyes used in Season 2, his eyelids are different than what it appears from the current series' design.

Gumball appears in the AT&T commercials with Mark Wahlberg, who calls him "kids' show thing."

TV Commercial – “Terms & Conditions 90”

Trivia

The Amazing World of Gumball was originally titled Gumball only, even before Gumball Watterson was the main character or created.

While the concept for the show had been around since 2007, production on the show did not officially begin until 2009.

The Amazing World of Gumball was named "Cartoon Network's first original series to be animated in the UK," With it being produced by Dandelion Studios from Season 1, and its world premiere being in the US, and its first sneak peek in the UK.

The show was renewed for a second season before it even premiered.

It was originally supposed to be about rejected cartoon characters attending a remedial school.

The series changed air dates from Monday to Tuesday to accompany Level Up in America and Europe. Then, the show moved to Wednesdays since all the time slots were taken on Tuesdays. However, it went back to Tuesdays towards the end of Season 2, only to be moved to Thursdays starting in Season 3.

Every episode to date has had the word "the" in its name except for 2 episodes, "Halloween" and "Christmas." Both are holiday specials.

This is not the case in Japan, where the episode names are changed to be similar to the names of episodes from anime series in Japan.

All episodes are 10 to 11 minutes long. There have been no 2 part or 30 minute episodes, though "The Origins" is a 30 minute special produced in season four, and another two-parter between the Season 4 finale, "The Disaster," and the first Season 5 episode, "The Rerun."

Season 3 was originally supposed to have a half hour special about how Gumball and Penny would break up because she found her true shape after "The Shell," but the episode was quickly scrapped. [1]